Honeybee on poppy

Honeybee in flight

honeybees on honeycomb

Credit: Zachary Huang / beetography.com

scout bee (top) comes home and shares her findings with another forager.

How to Make Busy Bees Busier

Credit: Sarah Greenleaf

A wild bee (the bumble bee Bombus vosnesenskii) and a honey bee forage together on a sunflower. Honey bees that interact with wild, native bees are up to five times more efficient in pollinating sunflowers.

Wanted: Queen Bee Seeks Harem of Male Dancers

Credit: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

A colony of honeybees. An unknown pathogen is pushing the industrious honeybee to disaster as scientists scurry to figure out what the cause is. Early results of a key study by the USDA and Pennsylvania State University point towards some kind of disease or parasite. About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the USDA.

Bees Know Their Numbers

A honeybee (Apis mellifera) forages for pollen on a daisy-like flower in a cultivated garden on a winter day in Africa.

Bees Do the Wave to Save Their Lives

Credit: Gerald Kastberger.

Giant honeybees, native to Asia, can be twice the size of Western honeybees. This species performs a shimmering wave to ward off predatory wasps.

Jennifer Welsh graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz's Science Communication graduate program after working at a start up biotech company for three years after getting her Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame. She has worked at WiredScience, The Scientist and Discover Magazine before joining the Live Science team.

Honeybee on poppy

Honeybee in flight

honeybees on honeycomb

Credit: Zachary Huang / beetography.com

scout bee (top) comes home and shares her findings with another forager.

How to Make Busy Bees Busier

Credit: Sarah Greenleaf

A wild bee (the bumble bee Bombus vosnesenskii) and a honey bee forage together on a sunflower. Honey bees that interact with wild, native bees are up to five times more efficient in pollinating sunflowers.

Wanted: Queen Bee Seeks Harem of Male Dancers

Credit: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

A colony of honeybees. An unknown pathogen is pushing the industrious honeybee to disaster as scientists scurry to figure out what the cause is. Early results of a key study by the USDA and Pennsylvania State University point towards some kind of disease or parasite. About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the USDA.

Bees Know Their Numbers

A honeybee (Apis mellifera) forages for pollen on a daisy-like flower in a cultivated garden on a winter day in Africa.

Bees Do the Wave to Save Their Lives

Credit: Gerald Kastberger.

Giant honeybees, native to Asia, can be twice the size of Western honeybees. This species performs a shimmering wave to ward off predatory wasps.